


and that's just what i'll do

by adelaidebabe (soulless_slut)



Series: i know i'll fall in love with you, baby [2]
Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: ...for obvious reasons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avoidance of feelings, Communication, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, I think so anyway, Ignores the Halloween Special, Post-Canon, ish, okay second kiss technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:16:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8399554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulless_slut/pseuds/adelaidebabe
Summary: “Noah Foster is in love with Audrey Jensen. It’s a fact. Much like the fact that neutron stars can spin at a rate of six hundred rotations per second.An unmistakable, hard fact.And he knows Audrey at least likes him back. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe?”--aka noah doesn't quite know how to move them from the confession-of-feelings phase to the actually-dating phase; part 2 of 2





	

**Author's Note:**

> wowwww, i gave myself a deadline of one month and i actually finished this a week before the deadline. i'm so proud of myself. i highly reccommend reading part 1 of my [i know i'll fall in love with you, baby](http://archiveofourown.org/series/559006) series. the other fics in my general noah/audrey series are optional (though they include some hc stuff that might be helpful to know). title from cry baby by the neighbourhood and this is still unbeta'd, like everything i write.

Noah Foster is in love with Audrey Jensen. It’s a fact. Much like the fact that neutron stars can spin at a rate of six hundred rotations per second.

An unmistakable, hard fact.

And he knows Audrey at least likes him back. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe?

(Okay, honestly, she told him that she wasn’t totally sure of her feelings. But she seemed to be inching toward the having-positive-feelings side, so that has to mean something.)

(Right?)

—

(Totally.)

—

(He thinks.)

—

He tries his hardest to casually re-bring up the conversation, trying to get Audrey to talk about it, to clarify—but every time, something distracts her or she remembers something or she changes the subject.

—

(“So, Audrey,” Noah starts, “I was wondering—”

“Oh shit, I totally forgot, Dad needs me home, like right now.”)

—

(They usually all go like that.)

—

Which probably means it’s more likely that Audrey’s trying to get  _out_ of the conversation.

Meaning she probably regrets saying anything to him because her feelings haven’t actually changed, and she still only loves him platonically.

It doesn’t suit him well to just assume, though, Noah needs to know for a fact. He wants Audrey to talk to him, he wants to know where they stand so he doesn’t keep feeling like he’s walking on eggshells.

He needs advice.

—

Which leads him to talking about the situation more than he should be during his monthly touch-base session with his usual therapist (the therapist he started seeing after his dad died and the anxiety attacks started).

They go through the usual questions: “Are you remembering to take your medication?” Yes; “Any changes that are too hard to deal with?” No; “How are you adjusting knowing it was a close friend who was targeting you and your other friends?”

“Pretty well until you brought it up, Denise,” Noah says in response.

She gives him a faint smile with a small eye roll at that.

When it’s clear that the usual questions are over and it’s his turn to really talk, Noah confesses what’s been bothering him—Audrey and her confession and her avoidance, and how Noah has no idea what to do.

(“I’m your anxiety counselor, Noah,” Denise interjects in the middle of his story. “Not your relationship counselor.”

“But it relates to my anxiety,” Noah says, and then continues.)

(She eventually tells him to just keep trying—like he hasn’t or something—and then decides that their time is up when Noah concedes to the fact that everything else in his life is fine.)

(He decides that Denise is, in fact, a lousy advice giver.)

—

(She’s not really, but Noah’s bitter.)

—

“So, Mom,” Noah says that afternoon, sitting at the island, watching his mom prepare dinner.

“So, Son,” she says in response, winking when he stares at her.

He almost regrets opening this topic, but he’s getting desperate and Audrey’s coming over for dinner. If he wants to try to actually, finally have this conversation tonight and get his mom’s advice, it’s now or never. “I told you how I felt about Audrey,” Noah says. His mom nods. “Okay, so—so say Audrey said something similar.”

Martha smiles and then tries to hide it. “I knew it,” she says. “I knew I was right, saying you guys would get married.”

“Okay, two things. Still in high school. And you’re doing the heteronormative thing again.”

She waves her hand. “I’m sure if you had brought home any friends, I would’ve said the same thing.”

Noah pauses and then makes a face. “Thanks, Mom,” he says. “So now I’m the loser on State Street that never had any friends. I’m glad you went there.”

She rolls her eyes. “Stop being melodramatic and help me make dinner while you try to ask me for advice.”

He grumbles a little under his breath, but does what she says because she’s his mom and he never denies her.

“Audrey told me that she thinks she might have similar feelings,” Noah says. “But we haven’t talked about it since when she said that to me, even though I keep trying.”

“So you continue to keep trying.”

Noah sighs. “That’s what Denise said. I’m surrounded by horrible advice givers.”

His mom doesn’t say anything in response to that quip, and Noah thinks that that’s fair.

They work in silence, Noah washing dishes after Martha uses them, and despite having partially watched his mom prepare, he doesn’t know what she’s making. All he knows is that she’s making a lot, meaning she knows she has a lot of late nights in front of her so she’s preparing to have lots of leftovers.

The oven dings, making them aware that it’s preheated. Noah watches as his mom puts no less than three casseroles in. He’s mainly impressed that they all fit.

“I hope those are all different.”

His mom hums. “No,” she says, “I was going to make you live off the exact same meal all week.”

Noah mock-laughs and prepares up something to say back, when the doorbell rings. He’s momentarily surprised, thinks that maybe it’s not Audrey, before he realizes that because Martha is home, Audrey might not have wanted to just barge in.

(He’s not totally sure why, though; it’s not like his mom doesn’t know that Audrey acts like the Foster home is her home, too.)

At first, Noah doesn’t move. Yes, he should go open the door, and yes, of course he wants to open the door. But he’s afraid that if it even looks like he’s about to mention the feelings conversation, Audrey will bolt like she has every time before. His mom keeps tilting her head at him the longer he stands in the kitchen. Eventually, Noah says, “If you’re so anxious, you go invite Audrey in.”

Martha smiles. “Part of me wants to just because I know you don’t mean that. Oh! Maybe I’ll grab Peter and he can open the door and greet Audrey.”

Noah grumbles something under his breath about that, “awful cat,” and “Who says I don’t mean it?” but begins to make his way out of the kitchen and to the front door anyway.

(Just because he doesn’t like Peter and Peter doesn’t like him, that doesn’t mean other people in Noah’s life don’t like his cat. Audrey, for some unfathomable reason, adores the thing, and Noah swears Peter gives him the smuggest look whenever Audrey holds him.)

(His mom, too.)

(He’s surrounded by traitors and bad advice givers.)

—

The worst of it, really, is that the one person he wants to ask for advice is Audrey. He doesn’t know why, maybe it’s because she’s his best friend, but he also just feels like she would give him advice that could actually work.

(Possibly because she’d be giving him advice about her, but regardless.)

But Noah can’t come to her because she’d run away again.

—

When Noah opens the front door, Audrey’s on her phone.

Not texting or scrolling through FaceBook. Like she’s got the phone up to her ear and is talking. She makes an apologetic face at Noah before saying, “I know, Em. I totally get it,” before quieting down to listen to what else Emma has to say.

Noah bites the inside of his cheek and opens the door wider to try to silently tell Audrey to come in, have a seat on the couch, relax while she’s talking to Emma. He knows how long their recent phone conversations can go on for.

Wait.

Noah barely registers himself closing the door before he goes up the stairs, straight to his room. He doesn’t do anything else but stand there.

Because what if—

Maybe Audrey’s been excusing herself out of every conversation because _Emma_ actually came to a realization of feelings?

He regrets thinking it, regrets that he’s still thinking it, because he can’t believe that if that were true that Audrey wouldn’t have told him. It’s not like she’d be worried about hurting his feelings or something; when she told him how she felt, it was all about her and none about him.

Which is definitely good if Audrey doesn’t feel the same or a better prospect came up.

Jesus, a better prospect. How’d he turn this into vague sports talk?

Not to mention that he knows Audrey doesn’t feel that way toward Emma anymore, hasn’t in a long time—as long as she wasn’t lying when she said that during one of their midnight talks. He can’t think of a reason for why she’d lie about that though; that talk was after one of their first, big fights.

The Emma Fight.

(Noah still regrets some of the things he said about Emma, especially after really getting to know her because of the whole Lakewood Murders thing.)

But feelings change. Noah knows that as much as anyone. Maybe those feelings came back. Maybe she and Emma have been talking about how to transition into a couple.

Maybe he should stop running with an idea that has absolutely no backing.

Noah takes a second to breathe in, deciding that it doesn’t matter. He’s dealt with these feelings before and he’ll continue to deal with them. If Audrey’s into Emma again, he’ll support her. It’s what he does.

He goes over to his movie shelf, scanning the titles, trying to find one to be his excuse for why he ran up here. He has to go through them all again, focusing on just trying to find one Audrey hasn’t seen. If they watch it all, it won’t be until after his mom leaves them; she hates horror movies. Noah has no idea where his love of them came from.

He decides on _The Caller_ , despite the fact that just the premise now turns his stomach a bit, ramping up his anxiety.

Noah goes back downstairs, movie in hand. Audrey’s still on the phone when he gets to the living room and he flashes her the DVD cover so she can see the title. She gives him a thumbs up, which could either mean she’s seen it, or she approves despite not knowing what it’s about. Noah assumes that she must trust his judgment in movies.

He puts the case down on the coffee table and then signals to Audrey that he’s going back into the kitchen. His sigh comes out heavier than expected and his mom looks at him in concern.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, walking over to him from the oven.

“Nothing,” Noah says, but he lets her pull him into a hug. “I don’t know,” he mumbles after a second. “I’m just being stupid.”

“Honey,” Martha tuts, pulling away. She frames his face with her hands and kisses his forehead. “Why don’t you ask Audrey what music she wants to listen to during dinner, hmm?” She kisses his forehead again before turning around to do whatever else she still needs to do in the kitchen.

Noah sighs again, wondering how he can ask Audrey anything when she’s still on the phone.

He keeps acting like he’s bothered that she’s on the phone, but he’s not. Not really. He still needs to figure out how to talk to Audrey anyway. But it would be kind of nice, he supposes, if Audrey could hang up on Emma because she’s here to eat with him and his mother.

Okay, maybe he’s a little bothered.

Noah follows his mom’s instructions and goes out into the living room, sitting down next to Audrey—with some space between them—to wait for her to be able to answer the small question.

She looks over at him and then crosses her eyes before rolling them. She smiles. Noah barely hears her say, “Yeah,” into the phone, too focused on his chest and his heart, and the constricting sensation it’s doing.

Noah Foster is in love with Audrey Jensen.

Like. _Really_ in love.

—

Audrey hadn’t decided on music, meaning the decision fell back on Martha who, naturally, chose to play her Rick Astley mix—partly because she loves him, partly because Noah hates him.

After dinner, she leaves them to clean up—per the standing rule in the Foster home—going upstairs to her bedroom. Without speaking, Audrey and Noah split the duties, packing away leftovers and washing dishes, respectively. When Audrey finishes first, as she always does, she takes to drying the dishes to give Noah more room to lay them out.

“What’s up with you today?” Audrey asks as she puts away the small stack of plates.

Noah scrubs the casserole dish harder. “What do you mean? Nothing’s up with me.”

She makes a noise of disbelief. “Usually I’m the one lying. C’mon, Foster, what’s going on?”

He shrugs and still scrubs harder. “Just wondering if you’re really okay with the movie I grabbed.”

Audrey’s silent for a while and Noah knows it’s because she knows that’s not really what he’s wondering. But he also knows Audrey and she isn’t going to call him out on it, just like he wouldn’t call her out on it. Not unless it was severely affecting her.

“Yeah,” she says. “I can deal with you hiding your face in my shoulder.”

Noah groans. “That was one time!” When he glances at Audrey, she’s smiling, real and unguarded. He quickly looks back to the casserole dish.

He still manages to scrub a little bit harder, hoping the heat from the water hides his blush.

—

Noah succeeds in hiding all of his flinches throughout the movie, most likely only because he’s seen it before.

—

After the movie finishes, Audrey asks if he wants to play Brawl. He’s about to say, “Yes,” when it occurs to him that now is the time to try to talk to Audrey again. So instead he asks, “You don’t have anywhere else you need to be?”

Audrey shakes her head, stretching back into the couch.

Noah nods, a little too repetitively, psyching himself up. “Cool,” he says, and then makes a face because cool? Really?

When he looks back over at Audrey, she tilts her head at him. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “So, Brawl?”

About to say, “Yes,” again, Noah catches himself. “Actually,” he says instead. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

Audrey pauses. “That’s not ominous.”

He doesn’t know which topic to broach first. The one he’s been trying for days, or the one where he asks if she has feelings for Emma. Or if Emma has feelings for her.

Hell, he still doesn’t know how to broach _either_.

“Earth to Noah,” Audrey says. When he looks at her instead of the spot on the coffee table he’d been staring at, Audrey makes a concerned face. “What’s going on with you, Space Cadet?”

“Are you and Emma secretly dating?” he asks and then recoils a bit because really? Really?

“Okay, not where I thought this was going,” she says under her breath. Her eyes are a wide and she looks surprised. She shakes her head. “No, Emma and I are not secretly dating. Why would you think that?”

Great, now he’s the jealous loser with a crush on someone who doesn’t like him back. Great. Cool. Awesome. The jealous loser with no reason to be jealous because it’s not like Audrey is his to be jealous over.

(Not that Audrey would ever be anyone’s; he meant it more of a figure of speech.)

Audrey’s still looking at him, waiting for an explanation. And he really doesn’t want to give one. Because it’s stupid, and he’s stupid, and he doesn’t like being this person.

“I-I don’t know,” he replies, semi honestly. Because he knows. But he doesn’t know why he _actually_ asked. “You guys have been phone-chatty lately, I don’t know.”

Audrey makes a face. “Yeah, because Emma told me that she’d rather talk to me on the phone than in person about certain subjects.”

“Sounds like classic Emma.”

Audrey doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Okay, I’m going to ignore that because we’re not going to start fighting about Emma again.”

“I’m sorry,” Noah says. It’s all he can say. “That was old, pre-murders me talking.”

“I know,” Audrey says. “So I’m ignoring it. Now stop deflecting.”

He wishes he was deflecting.

He lets the silence settle, lets Audrey just watch him as he tries to string together a sentence that’s not stupid or whiny or blame-y or any other negative adjective. Just something that’s honest, something that won’t scare Audrey.

“We never talked about us since the night Zoë broke up with me,” he blurts before he stops himself, mostly because it’s the best opener he’s thought of since this ordeal started.

Audrey looks away and reaches for her phone in her pocket before faltering. He can see it process through her mind, his words, her reaction to say her dad needs her or Emma needs her or that she has to go to Boston because her mom needs her. But she doesn’t say any of those things, and Noah thinks it’s only because she told him earlier that she didn’t have anywhere else to be.

“That’s true,” she says finally. She tries to relax back into the couch, Noah can tell, but he can also see how uncomfortable she is, how uneasy.

He kind of hates himself for finally bringing it up, for putting her in a position like this. Because it’s clear that after some thought, she’s changed her mind, that she only has platonic feelings toward him. That she’s back where she was when he confessed, when she said, “I do love you, Noah. Just…not like that.” And now she has to reject him all over again.

He wants to pretend that he didn’t bring it up, or change the subject now. Agree to play Brawl. He knows Audrey would accept any of those options without a second thought.

But the cat’s out of the bag, and Noah doesn’t know if he actually can. Or really, actually, _honestly_ wants to.

“Audrey,” Noah says softly, so softly that he’s kind of amazed it came from him. When she looks at him, he wants to touch her. Her face or her chin or her hand or her knee, he doesn’t know. He just wants to establish a connection. Something to let her know that it’s okay, that she rejected him before and he was fine; that he’s still going to be here for her. “It’s okay,” he says, and he reaches slowly for her hand in case she wants to pull it out of reach.

But she doesn’t and Noah holds it. Cradles it. At once, Noah notices how dark it is outside and how low the lights are, the shadows highlighting Audrey’s face. He swallows.

He cared about Zoë, he liked her, thought she was cute, but Audrey.

Audrey is one of the most beautiful beings Noah’s ever laid eyes on.

It’s in her strength and how she carries herself; it’s in every part of her.

Seeing her now, in this lighting, his chest constricts again and it hits him at once. “Wow,” he breathes out.

He can see Audrey begin to form the question, probably to ask him what he’s talking about, but instead Noah brings his hand up to her face, cradling her cheek.

Audrey’s eyes close.

And Noah _knows_.

He knows how wrong he’s been, that Audrey hadn’t realized she didn’t feel anything for him but that she _did_. She did and it scared her, and so she ran every time. He feels like he had days after the party, knowing that all he wanted to do was kiss Audrey one more time.

Before, he thought it was to get it out of his system. To kiss her and realize that it was just the drugs at the party, that her lips weren’t really that soft, that the urge to kiss her wasn’t real.

But he knows now.

Noah leans forward, close enough that they’re sharing breath, close enough that he can almost feel Audrey’s lips. He keeps waiting for his mom to come back downstairs and ruin this, for Audrey’s phone to buzz, for Audrey to pull away. But she doesn’t, and none of that happens.

So Noah kisses her. Slow. Soft. Just a peck, really, something small because he’s so afraid of scaring Audrey off now.

He pulls away, and Audrey opens her eyes.

“Was that okay?” he asks, also removing his hand from her cheek to hold her hand again. Audrey’s silent, but he thinks (hopes) that she’s just processing.

Eventually, she nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I—” She stops, breathing in. “I don’t think I came to a conclusion about how I felt until now.”

“And?”

“Yeah,” she says again. “I think I have officially moved to liking you non-platonically.”

Noah smiles. He tries to keep it small, but. “So,” he says, casually. “Brawl?”

**Author's Note:**

>   * the therapist noah saw in the first fic i wrote was not his usual therapist, denise. noah has a usual therapist because he has generalized anxiety disorder (brought on by his father's death). he takes medication and has monthly sessions with denise
>   * i have the zoah break up scene written in my head
>   * the emma fight was the first big fight noah and audrey had after they became friends; noah said some unflattering things about emma and audrey got defensive
>   * he obviously doesn't feel that way anymore because he's actually gotten to know emma
>   * i have no idea what noah's mom does for a living, i just vaguely referenced that it's something that keeps her away for long hours
>   * i have never seen the caller but i really want to because, honestly, it looks really good, i recommend at least watching the trailer
>   * i'm on tumblr @ [fosterjensen](https://fosterjensen.tumblr.com), pls come talk to me 
> 



End file.
